


What's Done Is Done

by ChocolateChipFic (Leigh_B)



Series: Momvellan and Papa!Franken!Solas [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Baby has a tantrum because she is a baby, Dicipline, Fit Throwing, Mother Daughter Bonding, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Sad, The Way I Think Ancient Elves with Emotional Cloud Things Would Discipline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 17:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6479455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leigh_B/pseuds/ChocolateChipFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Halani Lavellan realizes that she may have made a tiny, HUGE mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Done Is Done

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Feynite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/gifts).



The girl awoke from her sleep with a start. In a flurry of motion, she sprang from Lavellan’s lap and bolted through the entrance to the great hall. The woman, having dozed off in spite of her anxiety, took a few stunned moments to gather herself before darting after the child.

 

“Da’len?” she called, voice affronted and confused. “Come back!”

 

She found the child standing in a dazed shock before the hall’s feature wall. A vast expanse of mullioned windows, overlaid with a lattice of diagonal ironwork glazing bars, opened to the desolate frozen landscape below. Her little body was turned to face the yawning doorway between the great hall and the gatehouse: the doorway that Lavellan passed through, bare feet padding on the cold marble floor. The girl’s face was at odds with the direction of her body, neck angled sharply to direct her stare out over the woods. Lavellan sent a hesitant glance out of the windows herself. The forest preyed upon the woman’s instinctual alarm, amalgamating into a predatory form lurking in the night. Undergrowth frothed into the miasma that oozed from chains of entropic spells. Trees became the hands of emaciated giants, stained dark with blood and straining desperately toward the heavens in an effort to rip the blinking stars from their nest.

 

Lavellan averted her eyes.

 

Moonlight, amplified by the reflective snow, gathered over the child’s face. It caught in her gaze, sinking down into the innermost ring of pigment encircling her pupils. The outer tones of dulcet firmamental blue coagulated with the gloom that crept in alongside the moonbeams, darkening the child’s stare into a frightful glower. She was a heavy sleeper, it would seem. Her eyes were glazed, shadowy and slivery and strange in the ghostly light. There was a feral aspect to her stare. A wild fear thinly veiled behind hazed layers of sleep induced temper.

 

Lavellan did not suppress her body’s tremors. She wrapped her arms around herself, slowing in her approach to the girl. The child was still as death, likely remaining in some realm of sleep and not quite conscious enough to register the spikes of discomfort caused by the eerie night and chilled air. The woman drew close, warming the area with a spell to chase away lingering cold. When she was near enough, Lavellan spotted the small quivers running up and down the girl’s body. She was as taught as a bowstring, trembling with restrained force. The woman’s arm tucked tightly against her own belly. She thought of reaching out, but refrained.

 

She told herself that it was because she did not want to agitate the odd condition of the child.

           

“Da’len?” she ventured, soft and cautious. “Little one? Let us return to sleep,” she intoned. Lavellan raised one hand, forcing herself to extent it. “Everything is going to be alri-“

 

“It’s not!” the child shouted, tone shrill. It was a startling contrast to the burdened silence, and the echo of it reverberated through the hall as though it had been the crack of a whip. She knocked Lavellan’s hand away, slamming her knuckles into the woman’s wrist. “Nothing’s alright! It’s not time yet. The stupid enchantment broke because I can’t _do_ enchantments, and now everything is ruined!”

 

“No,” Lavellan attempted to soothe, regret threatening to crash down upon her.

 

“Yes!” the girl bashed her fist down against her own hip, a meaty _smack_ noting the force with which she did so.

 

Lavellan, quashing any second thoughts or remorse for her own actions, steeled herself. “That is enough, Da’len,” the woman tried to snag the girl’s hand.

 

The child dodged, stomping a foot and striking out at the stonework column that stood between the elongated panes of glass. It was an unforgiving surface, easily breaking the thin skin over the girl’s knuckles. Her blood, black in the odd lighting, welled in the dips of her flesh.

 

“This behavior is uncalled for. We do _not_ hurt ourselves out of frustration!” Lavellan’s voice deepened, an authoritative edge accompanied by the release of a staunch disapproving front. “And besides, I am the one who broke your enchantment.”

 

That heavy stillness crashed back all at once. The girl’s eyes rolled in a slow, angry prowl. They met the woman’s gaze with outrage.

 

She wrinkled her nose and bared her teeth in an ugly sneer. “ _You_ did this?”

 

Lavellan stiffened, unsure what to expect. The girl was typically mild in manner, eager to please and follow directions. The woman had never seen her in such a snit. Before Lavellan had fully anticipated what might come next, the girl flew at her. Her little hands smacked and pinched any part of the woman that they fell upon, smears of her blood making her flailing punches slip against Lavellan’s skin.

 

 “How could you? We’re not ready!” She spit her accusations from behind clenched teeth, increasing the frenzy of her tantrum. “It wasn’t time, and now he’s angry!”

 

The woman took the first few blows, astounded by the girl’s violent outburst. A scratching swipe to her arm brought Lavellan back to herself. She caught the child’s wrists in one hand, pinning them against her body while sinking her weight onto her knees. The woman did not want to loom over the girl while she reprimanded her.    

 

“Hey!” Lavellan snapped. She added to the firmness of her tone by projecting a quick slap of chastising offense. The sting of the potent emotional ploy dimmed swiftly, replaced by an oppressive sense of disappointment and hurt. “Look at me,” she commanded, grabbing the girl’s chin and directing her gaze. 

 

The child, physically immobilized, seemed to fall out of a daze. She blinked at Lavellan with horror as the disconcerting feral sheen from before melted into tears. Her anger fizzled into sorrow.

 

The woman did not balk at the pitiable shift. 

 

“You will never,” she emphasized the word deep in her throat. “ _Never_ strike me again, Da’len. Do you hear me?”

 

The child gaped at her, seemingly as shocked with herself as Lavellan had been. The sadness she exuded soured into a forlorn terror. “I didn’t mean it, Mamae! I’m so sorry. I would never have! I just-“

 

“You did,” the woman supplied steadily. Her voice remained a register too low. “And it was unacceptable.”

 

The child whimpered, squeezing her eyes closed as though she could will the situation away. “I’m sorry,” she echoed meekly.

 

“Look at me,” Lavellan instructed once more. The child complied, pouring apologetic sentiments. “You will not do that ever again…”

 

It was more of a statement than a question, but Lavellan left it open ended intentionally so as to make the child participate in her own scolding.  

 

“I will not!” she gushed, perfectly on que and ostensibly back to her old self.

 

They spent a few moments quietly. Lavellan lessened her hold, smoothing her palm over the girl’s wrists and drawing the crying child ever closer. She pressed her lips to one salty cheek and then the other. The girl heaved a weepy sigh, deflating as she leaned her forehead down onto Lavellan’s shoulder. The immediate fear seemed to flee along with the girl’s desire to remain upright.

 

“I’m sorry to have hurt you, Mamae. There is no excuse, but I was just really…” she sighed again. The girl’s words ghosted away, voice feeble as a wave of foreign exhaustion beat down what remained of Lavellan’s disciplinary projection.

 

Her child was too weak to sob.

 

“Really what, little Love?” the woman pressed, tone soft and familiar. “You were just really what?”

 

The child responded with a shake of her head. Lavellan rolled off of her haunches, dropping onto her backside and scooching until she rested against the stone pillar. She pulled the girl along in her lap, legs dangling off to the side with her head resting in the nape of Lavellan’s neck.  

 

“What is the matter with you, Child?” Lavellan began to pet at the girl, compelled to comfort her after their aggressive interactions.  

 

“I talked with Papa…” the child sounded drowsy beneath her tears.

 

Was that the cause of this outburst? A conversation with the father she loved and missed? To physically attack her Mamae? To hurt herself?

 

“And what did he say to upset you so?” Lavellan asked as she ran her fingers through the child’s hair, plucking arrant tangles into submission. “I’m sure he was happy to see that you were safe after such a long time.”

 

“Yeah, but he was angry too.”

 

A chill that could not be attributed to the ambient temperature nipped the woman. It was immature to blame another adult for the actions of a child, especially if you’d gone about summoning that adult to assist you in the care of said child. Adults were meant to present a united front... and surely the Dread Wolf had not set such fear in the heart of his daughter?

 

“I’m sure he seemed that way. I would seem angry too, if you disregarded a request that I had made in the interest of your safety. Just as you seemed angry with me for breaking your enchantment before.”

 

“I didn’t _seem_ angry,” the girl groused. “I was angry. I am angry.”

 

There was no evidence to support that claim. Lavellan had bullied down the girl’s emotional walls with the force of her corrective tactic. It left the child’s feelings open to her examination. She was sure that the girl was aware of this fact. She could have rectified the situation, blocking Lavellan out in the interest of her own privacy, had her little heart held such a motive. Lavellan could feel that the girl housed nothing beyond exhaustion, regret, and that overwhelming sense of hollow fear lurking beneath the surface.

 

“I did not break it to upset you,” Lavellan chose to share her motivations. There was nothing to be done now. The Dread Wolf sought his pup, and it was her own doing that exposed their location to him. “I thought that it would be better if he could come to be with us here. Better he convince me to go with you than just you, Da’len.”

 

The girl was quiet for some time, slipping closer and closer to sleep in spite of her nagging insecurities. Lavellan caressed her in the meantime, stroking her soft hair and kissing at her forehead. The woman nursed her own regret, allowing it to exist beneath the barrier of her skin for a small time. Soon enough, she would be angling to justify her love for this child to the man… to the _God_ that fathered her. She hadn’t taken the time to consider what would happen if he chose to rip her away.

 

What if he had no interest in permitting the child a mother? What if the sight of her offended him? A younger, more naive version of a lost love that intended to claim pieces of the child whose devotion had belonged to him, singularly. Why should he put any effort into her?

 

Lavellan recognized that this had been a mistake. She should not have broken the amulet on the whim of an emotional crash brought on by the weight of new maternal stressors. She should have waited until morning, discussed things with her mercifully bright and intellectually mature child, and then gone from there. Again, however, there was nothing for it at this point. What was done was done.  

 

She took a deep breath, considered her options, and then begun to compile the reasons that she wished to be allowed to mother this girl. She mentally composed a speech, hopefully a rhetorically sound and appropriately moving speech, about her intentions toward the child and why motherhood was something that she could manage.                                                 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I am so grateful for anyone who comes and reads here! Of course, I am feeling an incredible amount of gratitude toward the magnanimous and generous Feynites (when is that not a thing that I feel?) for allowing me to use her character of Franken!Solas and the scenario in which he aways with this precious baby-child. Lavellan and Franken!Solas will finally be meeting in the next addition to this series! :O


End file.
